Whistleblowers

Nuclear whistleblowers are retaliated against, vilified, persecuted, prosecuted, framed and fired by a nuclear establishment whose greatest fear is the truth.
They are the true heros and sheros of the ‘nuclear age.’
They deserve our gratitude, encouragement, defense and support.
On this page you will find videos, audio and print reports on their revelations and travails.

PG&E’s shut down nuclear power plant at Humboldt Bay near Eureka, CA. Its cooling pool still contains 390 “fuel assemblies,” each of which is a bundle of a few dozen multiple used fuel rods.

Shut It Down Now! Former Humboldt PG&E IBEW 1245 Nuclear Plant Technician Bob Rowen On Nuclear PowerFrom the Labor Video Project:
Bob Rowen was a Humboldt PG&E IBEW 1245 nuclear control technician at the power plant. He talks about being a control technician at the plant and what happened when he began to stand up for health and safety as a whistleblower. His fight to protect the workers and the community cost him his job when he raised health and safety concerns and he along with another nuclear control technician were retaliated against and illegally terminated. He also recounts an effort to set up a criminal conspiracy frame-up by PG&E to charge him with planning to blow up the plant and a false document was sent to the FBI to blacklist him throughout the country to prevent him from working in any other nuclear plant in the US. He also reports on the role of his union IBEW 1245 and the media when a reporter from NBC Donald Widener tried to cover the story. This interview was done on January 26, 2015.
Rowen has written a book about his struggle called My Humboldt Diary: A True Story of Betrayal of the Public Trust, Nuclear Power at Humboldt Bay.
For more information
MyHumboldtDiary.comThe Not-So-Peaceful Atom
Bob Rowen accidentally took on corporate nuclear power in the 1970s. Four decades later he remembers what it was like to be Humboldt County’s most infamous whistleblower.
By Japhet Weeks
Diablo Canyon and the question of safety
September 16, 2011 12:15 am • James Murr/Looking Forward
Common Dreams’ News Wire had an article on Nov. 24, 1998, reporting the firing of a shift foreman at Diablo Canyon after he began questioning plant safety. Senior reactor operator Neil Aiken maintained that the safety culture degenerated, so he brought this to management’s attention.
Aiken had two decades of experience at the plant. PG&E responded by ordering him to undergo psychiatric evaluation. PG&E doctors diagnosed him with a mental disorder. Read moreNuclear waste mystery / The hunt is on for radioactive fuel rods that went missing from a former reactor near Eureka. It’s the third case of disappearing fuel rods in the country since 2000.
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Published 4:00 am, Sunday, August 29, 2004
Two months after discovering that three highly radioactive nuclear fuel rods are missing from a defunct PG&E nuclear reactor near Eureka, officials are still struggling to find them.